


A Place to Fall

by Settledvagabond



Category: Wentworth (TV)
Genre: BDSM, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 17:08:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4444742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Settledvagabond/pseuds/Settledvagabond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joan has noticed that Vera isn't quite all right after her mother's passing.</p><p>And it has become an unacceptable distraction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Place to Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly multiple chapter

Without ceremony, almost roughly, the front door cracked and popped inward, Joan's tall frame bending to stoop through it.  The blinds on the door clacked against it, _thwack thwack_ , as she swung it back, thrusting her purse through the opening and dropping it with a clunk onto the floor.  She shut the door behind her and took a deep breath in through her nose, brushing back the flyaway hairs tickling the edge of her forehead and cheeks with slightly shaking hands.  She tilted her head back and didn't so much look at the ceiling as stare through it with exasperation.

 

When she came down from an uneven exhale, she stared at the tile floor unseeingly.  This day. This _damn day._

 

_Vera._ Where was Vera.

 

As if in answer, she heard the echoing sounds of snuffling and gasps bounding off the chamber-like space of the upstairs bathroom.  Joan started to exhale through her mouth - her lips closed in like a camera aperture til it became a harsh almost-whistle.  Focus. _Fooooocus, Joan._

 

Her hands shook as she smoothed her hair again, delusionally pretending she was okay.  She nearly cursed out loud, but stopped herself.  But only just.

 

Shove it down, press it back.  Deal with the more fragile first. She looked out over the painfully silent house, the echoes of Vera's mother still ringing there in the yellowed fabrics and elderly furniture. It did not look like a bright, small woman lived there. It looked like a moth-eaten tomb.

 

Joan put her head in her hands. This had to stop. Or... change.

 

For all of Vera's bravado and put-on airs, she had not been okay. Joan had watched from a distance as her visage of control crumbled as people gave their condolances.  Vera was sheepish as she grappled to hide what she had done while concocting remorse for an end she felt not the slightest twinge of regret over - Joan had much more practice. She would have to teach her. It would take time. 

 

It was exhausting. 

 

She had her own problems to deal with, her own mask to maintain. When Vera had fled earlier that day, claiming illness, Joan had been insanely distracted all day, knowing Vera was not, exactly, sick, and not being able to do a damned thing about it. She had lost her temper twice that day and had to apologize - _apologize -_ to Linda and then Will for her shortness, attributing it to perhaps the same bug Vera had succumb to.

 

Joan hadn't been sick in ten years. Hearty constitution. Til now.

 

Now, she was sick with worry - so much so that she had rushed out of work, driven at an unacceptable pace, in an entirely unsafe manner, to ransack the doorframe and pots outside her deputy's home to find the inevitable spare key.  She needed a damn drink.

 

_Vera,_ she corrected herself, _handle Vera first. Then your needs, Joan._

 

She breathed in once more through her nose and exhaled sharply til it was almost a hiss.

 

This _goddamn_ day...

 

Joan sucked in her bottom lip and chewed on it hard.  She had to get herself calm, or she would be entirely ineffective at what she had come to do.

 

And Joan hated nothing so much as being ineffective.

 

"Hey... hello?  Is... is someone there?"

 

Joan looked up to see just Vera's slippered-feet as she crept nervously down the stairs like a frightened animal. Joan's chest expanded with breath as she instantly put aside her own feelings and focused outward. No matter how Vera's fragility and hesitancy infuriated her, all she wanted to do was protect her, love her... and tear her apart.

 

_Steady, Joan.  Steady._

 

Vera took another creaking, hesitant step down the old, decrepit stairs.  Joan could just make out the hem of the shabby, time-worn and faded blue robe Vera wore over her pajamas.  With a jolt, her anger absolutely melted, replaced with a swelling of her heart so big it shocked her, as she spotted the sparrows printed all along her pajama pants.

 

Joan braced herself against the wall while Vera still couldn't see her.  Vera called out again,

 

"Hello?"

 

Burning tears saturated her voice, throat raw, and Joan could neither wait nor maintain her annoyance. She pushed off the wall and stepped forward from her hiding place, grabbing her purse and rounding the stairs smoothly.

 

Vera gave a quiet gasp at the sight of her, self-pitying tears suddenly drying up. She paused, fingers twitching to cover her lips. Joan noted her eyes were blazing red, her hair in disarray.  It was far too warm for her pajamas and robe, Joan noted.  They would also have to work on her poor circulation.

 

"What... what are you doing here, Governor?"

 

All her mourning was replaced with confusion. She took a half step down, towards Joan, then thought better of it and stopped.

 

"I'm not feeling well, you wouldn't want to get yourself... sick," she said, uncertainly. Silence lingered.  They both knew Joan wasn't convinced.

 

"Oh I have a notoriously strong immune system," Joan countered, mounting the stairs slowly, lest she scare her off.  Vera's eyes grew wider with every step, frozen and rooted to the spot.  When Joan was just three steps away, she stopped, appraising her openly.

 

Her tiny shape was hidden by bird-printed, blouse-and-pant style pajamas and the fluffy, aged bath robe.  Her feet were stuck into equally old, worn, cotton-ball slippers.  Vera's trembling hands were unsure what to do as they reached instinctively to cover her body; despite how clothed she was, she felt utterly exposed. Vera looked anywhere but Joan's eyes as she asked,

 

"Joan why... why are you... here?"

 

Joan sighed. This would be so much easier if they didn't pretend.

 

"I think..." she began, taking another step, "we both know... ", another, slower step, "You aren't sick."

 

The last consonant seemed to physically strike Vera - she recoiled slightly, trembling.  Joan came to the step just below the one Vera was standing on and stared down at her.  They were inches apart, Joan's energy hitting Vera so hard she had to grab the banister.  Joan did not miss the heat of satisfaction and foreboding that reaction gave her.

 

"Be that as it may, I have still come to administer..." she waved her hand in the air casually. 

 

"...Treatment," she said, finally.

 

Vera blinked hard and wide.

 

_Oh, how I am going to hate and enjoy this,_ Joan thought.

 

"Treat...treatment?" Vera blinked, confused.  She fumbled in the pockets of her robe clumsily. "Oh I've got medicine, I've already-"

 

Vera gulped, words dying abruptly as Joan encircled her neck with a single hand, forcing her head back certainly, but with great care. 

 

Joan's dark eyes watched her, deep amber searching fluttering sky blue.

 

She held Vera there a moment, let her feel the weight of her grip about her neck.  The house was silent, as if scared any noise from it would provoke punishment for Vera.  Joan could feel Vera's pulse thud through the tender skin of her quivering sparrow's throat.  She reveled in it a moment, the scent and look of fresh fear, savouring it.  One never gets that first moment back.

 

When finally Joan spoke, her tone left no room for argument. It was, unquestionably, a command. And Vera wasn't sure there was any rebellion in her.

 

"Your state is affecting your ability to work, which is impairing my own.  You will allow me to... correct this."

 

Vera's brow furrowed.

 

"How am I -"

 

"I did not ask you to speak," Joan interrupted lazily, fingers brushing Vera's throat, the whisper of a threat.

 

Vera's eyes went painfully wide.  Joan flexed her hand around Vera's neck once, tellingly, and released her lightly.

 

"You will speak if asked a direction question only," Joan continued, ignoring Vera's look of shock and her sudden tremor as Joan rooted through her purse, "And you will address me as mistress from this moment until I decide we are complete."

 

Joan looked up at Vera lazily, like a lion telling a mouse what to do in order to not be eaten... yet.

 

"Am I understood?" She asked.  When there was no response, she added, to Vera's stunned silence, "You may say yes, mistress."

 

Vera stuttered silently for a moment, sputtering, finding no words. What was she playing at? Did she sincerely mean - ?

 

"Yes, mistress."

 

Vera clamped her hands over her mouth, eyes wide in shock and panic.

 

Had that come from _her?!_

 

A feral smile slowly crept up one side of Joan's lips, which she licked hungrily.

 

Vera felt faint as Joan lifted her foot onto the same step as her, pushing herself steadily closer.  The size and form of her moved like a curious snake, well aware and even tired of its effect on its prey.  She leaned towards Vera, reaching out to stroke Vera's chin with arched fingers.  She came so close her breath ghosted warmly over Vera's cheek, and her aquiline nose brushed Vera's teasingly.

 

Vera felt a jolt in the juncture between her thighs.  She gulped audibly.

 

Joan pulled back slightly and brushed her lips over Vera's, not quite kissing her.

 

Vera thought she might evaporate.

 

When Joan lifted her head and looked Vera in the eye, her gaze was unfamiliar to Vera, but... playful.

 

"Good girl," Joan said, breath sliding across Vera's lips and into her mouth, sliding over her tongue, and Vera felt such a pulse of arousal as she had never felt in her life.  She felt the distinct and disturbing desire to touch her own body, her skin suddenly electric.  Joan slipped her fingers with agonizing slowness down Vera's neck, then parted ways with her skin and flicked her hand in the direction of the upstairs.

 

"Now go, lay down on your bed, face up, arms and legs spread.  And wait."

 

She finally found what she was looking for in her purse.

 

Vera's pulse raced at the sight of black, velvet, leather.  She remained unmoving.

 

Joan watched her, silent, still.  She smiled a bemused smile and said, simply,

 

"Now."

 

Vera turned on her heels and raced clumsily up the stairs, stumbling, her knees skinned on the rough carpet, wondering all the while what the _hell_ she was doing.

 

She nearly tumbled again as she turned the corner into her room, as if compelled by some unseen force.  Even as she hurriedly smoothed, spread, and pressed her covers flat and laid down, part of her was screaming at her to run but she continued to do as ordered.  She thought for a panicked second about the knick knacks and childish things around the room that made her feel juvenile, but there was nothing to be done about it now.  The tiny blue flowers of her comforter soaked up the damp of her palms inconspicuously as she gripped the fabric nervously.

 

Deep silence ensconced Vera.  She waited, her heartbeat thrumming in her ears.  And then she felt the strangest thing:

 

A brilliant smile lit up her face.  And she felt giddy, high.  She giggled.  Her eyes searched the unremarkable ceiling of a room she had known all her life that suddenly felt behind her, and she felt the strange compulsion to burn it all down the moment they were through.  Through with... whatever was to come.  Then the sobriety of the moment returned and her chest shook as she exhaled as quietly as she could.

 

A moment later, Joan entered - her right hand stroking something Vera couldn't exactly see without moving.  She had the strangest instinct that she had better not move, not even lift her head.  She tried not to so much as twitch as Joan slowly paced around the bed, her weight causing the old floor beneath her to creak, so that Vera would have known where she was even if she hadn't been able to see her out of her periphery.  Her steps were measured, heavy, and specific.  The silent, hunting movement kept Vera still save for her hesitant breathing, unsure if she should do even that.

 

"Slide further up," Joan ordered suddenly, and Vera obediently scooted upward.  Joan felt her insides clench as she obeyed.  Vera scrambled to perform precisely as told.

 

"Arms and legs _wide_ ," she emphasized, and Vera spread them wider.  Joan swallowed dryly, her arousal keen now.  She had known Vera would acquiesce, but not so _beautifully,_ so _readily_.  She bit her bottom lip and clenched her thighs against her own feelings, lest she lose herself.

 

_All the time in the world,_ she mused as she circled the bed idly.  _All the time in the world._

 

Out of the corner of her eye, Joan noted the lack-luster surroundings.  Everything was a pale, faded idea of what it had once been, a shrine to what once hoped to be a life, preserved in the heart of a young girl.

 

That flower had curled in on itself and dried before its time, covered now in a thick layer of hopelessness and shame.

 

She would... clear this, rectify it.  Make the heart and dried skin crack and bleed afresh with longing and life.

 

Joan stroked the length of leather in her hand longingly for a moment,  before she set it down next to Vera's head, almost daring her to turn and look.  When she didn't, and bit her lip instead, Joan smiled.  So quick, so eager to obey, to get it right.

 

To _please_.

 

She leaned in close to Vera's ear, the bed sagging and sighing under her.

 

"Good girl," she whispered, and Vera inhaled sharply at the proximity of Joan's lips to her ear.  It felt like a present, like a _reward._

 

Joan continued to circle the bed, disappearing to do something with the legs of the bed, dipping down where Vera couldn't see.  She heard sounds of rustling fabric, felt the tug of something being pulled and tested.  She hoped the ancient bed would hold up to whatever Joan was planning.  With too much time to sit there in silence, her mind began to ask her questions she didn't want to answer, like

 

_What are you doing?!_

 

and

 

_She is going to hurt you!_

 

or

 

_Why are you letting her do this?_

 

As Vera felt softness move over wrists, her brain went still, and the answer to all the questions came firmly, in her own voice.

 

_Because I want her to._

 

Vera breathed out slowly.  She felt her own weight against the bed, suddenly more solid and real.  Her tears had dried up.

 

She felt a sudden and light-headed calm, as if she had been waiting for this as long as she had known Joan.  Perhaps longer.  It felt... inevitable, it felt right.

 

Whatever _it_ was.

 

"I'm going to undress you now," Joan said, encircling Vera's wrists with slight pressure, leaning over the bed to look her in the eye.  "If I do not, at any time, have permission to do anything I am about to do, you may use one word: Sequential."  She waited, watching Vera's eyes to be sure of her comprehension. Though slightly furtive, her look was clear and present.  Vera nodded almost imperceptibly.

 

"I warn you, however," Joan continued, pressing more firmly on Vera's wrists, "If you use that word, our activity ceases and I will not resume, do you understand?"

 

She watched Vera very carefully as she thought. After a long moment of consideration, Vera nodded, chin to her chest.

 

"Yuh... yes, mistress."

 

Joan smiled wide.

 

"Then let's begin."

 

With aching slowness, Joan undressed her, first the pajama pants, and the one slipper still dangling from a foot, then the old dog of a robe.  Vera did her best to assist without actively moving, lest she get in the way.  Joan's fingers graced Vera's collarbone as they travelled on the way to her top's buttons; Vera breathed in sharply and arched uncontrollably into the touch, her insides burning.

 

"You are safe," Joan said, pulling the buttons wide slowly and slipping the sleeves from Vera's arms.  Vera's small hands balled into fists as she pulled her arms out of the sleeves sheepishly.  She spread her arms wide again, shaking.

 

"You are cared for," Joan whispered, brushing her hands over Vera's breasts, spilling over her small bra.  She reached under Vera, who lifted eagerly,  and undid the hooks.  She slipped the bra straps down Vera's goosefleshed arms and dropped the garment to the floor.

 

"You have done nothing wrong, and no one will hurt you," she told her, lowering one hand to Vera's knickers, using the other to hold herself aloft.

 

She paused, hooked her fingers into the rim of Vera's underwear, and pulled.  Vera cleared her throat, shimmying her hips to assist with the removal of her underpants.  She said nothing. The night air swept over her naked flesh causing her to shiver.  She felt faint, adrift.  Vera couldn't even remember if she had ever just laid on her bed, alone, naked - let alone with someone else present.  She would have been too scared her mother would have come in, would have condemned her, shamed her immediately, made her feel less-than for her small, meak body.

 

Joan made no such comments, in fact made no comment at all, save for a small nod of her head, and left Vera wondering if she was... adequate. She bit her lip and waited.

 

In the darkness beyond Vera's bed, Joan moved quietly at the foot and then head of the bed, slipping something over ankles and wrists, one at a time.  It felt so soft it almost tickled - first it slipped on, then the fit of it tightened and Vera felt two fingers slip in between her skin and it, each time the act was repeated feeling the touch to be wildly intimate for some reason.  Each time Joan was satisfied, she nodded as though confirming the functioning of equiptment, machinery.

 

She felt the first glimpse of real fear when Joan stood over her again, that black mass in her hand.  She lifted it, then brought it in contact with the opposite palm - not hard, but enough to make Vera aware of what it was, in a vague sense.

 

"I am going to strike you now," Vera heard her say, though she still couldn't believe what was happening. "It will not hurt very much, at first."  Joan leaned close again, her breath hot against Vera's skin.  "But I ask that you be patient.  And endure. And you shall be rewarded."

 

Vera didn't need to be told what the reward was to know she wanted it.

 

How had it come to this? How did they get here?  Strangely, nearly all her thoughts had fled her - all the guilt, all the fear, every reason that had driven her from work, nearly frantic with -

 

_THWACK._

 

All thought vanished, replaced by the silence in the wake of a single smack - followed by the blooming of a gentle sting on her upper right arm.

 

_Thhwack._

 

The space next to that, that expanse of sensitive skin, lit up like a light with mild sensation.

 

Seeing no immediate upset or resistance, Joan proceeded along the line of Vera's arm, bringing the narrow leather paddle up, then smacking it down onto her skin.  Vera trembled slightly, unsure what was happening, and why she wasn't moving or resisting - in fact with each renewed hit, each harder than the last, she worked harder to remain still.  Her mind cleared, focusing on nothing but the strike and the moment of hanging air between it and the next blow.  The leather dragged along her breasts, pressing hard into the nipple - it dipped along her belly, brushed along her pubic hair before starting the cycle on her thighs.  Over and over, the same steady blows went - and each time the impact heavied a little, gained speed, and intensity.  Each time Joan reached the sides of Vera's calves, she moved upward again, started with her upper arms.  She breathed steadily with the rhythm of her strikes - _inhale, thwack thwack thwack, exhale, thwack, thwack, thwack._ Vera began to breathe along with her, but as the blows sped up, eventually reaching an impossible pace, Vera found herself gasping, hissing, whimpering.

 

Finally, just as Vera was about to yell for her to stop, Joan paused. Vera turned her head slightly, shocked to find Joan sweating, breathing heavily.  Her skin cried out, red and frightened - what was happening?  Joan fought to control her breathing.

 

"Turn over," she said, voice husky and low.  Joan felt her breasts ache, her body strain to touch, to touch Vera, herself, anything, but she maintained her distance as she undid the restraints at Vera's wrists and ankles. Vera complied - and the hiss of air she produced as her tender flesh dragged across the covers made Joan undeniably wet to hear.  She pulled at her bottom lip with her teeth and blew out of her nose, trying to regain her composure.  Vera's slightly lifted, exposed backside did nothing whatsoever to help.

 

Joan licked her lips and slid the paddle across Vera's cheeks firmly, letting her feel the weight of it.  She wiped the sweat from her brow.

 

"You are mine, Vera." 

 

She lifted the paddle and brought it down with a light flick of her agile wrist.  Vera twitched and made a tiny noise of surprise.  She pressed her face into the covers.

 

"Say it," Joan commanded, striking twice more, with more strength behind each stroke.

 

Vera trembled and moaned - then gasped at her own response.  Joan could not restrain a satisfied groan at the sound.

 

"I'm yours, mistress," was the muffled response. Vera turned her head for air and to be heard.

 

"As my property," Joan said, between a steady rhythm of ever-increasing strokes along Vera's buttox and upper thighs, "You will leave all concerns for your actions to me."  She paused, in word and deed.  "Am I understood?"

 

She watched Vera clench the bed sheets, arching into the phantom blows.  She inhaled and exhaled deeply, attempting to gain some semblance of control over herself.

 

"Yes, mistress," was her quiet reply.

 

Joan breathed deeply and smiled.

 

"Good girl."

 

And the blows began again.

 

She varied the striking til she found a rhythm she liked, til Vera was groaning and clenching the bed like a mewling kitten, trying not to move out of position.  The steady _smack, smack, smack,_ was loud in the threadbare room and pleased Joan like a song she was humming absently.  Each forceful strike shook the flesh where it landed. Joan silenced a gasp at the way Vera arched her back, muscles and backside tightening in pleasure.  She could only imagine how drenched Vera was between those quivering and flexing thighs, and it was so undoing her that she had to shake the image from her head in order to continue.

 

Under her ministrations, Vera started to go sort of numb, her mind black, the constant pain flooding out anything else like a brilliant light.  All she felt was the sting of the paddle - all that she heard was the sound of it making contact with her skin, and of Joan's increasingly labored breath.  Was she feeling what she was feeling?  Was her breath from her efforts or the sight of her, rocking in need and delirious with sensation?

 

Unbeknownst to Vera, every moan, every yelp, was like reaching out and grazing Joan's own pulsating sex with those small, nimble fingers.  Joan felt her nipples harden against her bra, and her arousal demand to be attended to, her neglected body beginning to rebel.

 

_Patience, patience,_ she commanded herself, the rosy red dawn of Vera's skin giving way to a crimson flush.  When she saw the capillaries begin to break, blossoming light tiny patterns like stars in the milky way, she would stop.  Til then she hit harder, then lighter, then somewhere inbetween, gauging her work off the arch of Vera's back, and the sounds escaping her wet, parted lips. She panted with effort, her arms working smoothly but aching, reaching her limit.

 

But she would not cease until she was complete.  She would ache and burn and tear until Vera had reached her release, and no less an effort would be tolerated.

 

She breathed deep, motivated anew, ascending to a high of floating ease and redoubled her efforts. _Smack, smack,_ the hiss of air around the leather.  _SMACK -_ the shocked and childlike gasp from Vera.

 

Then the words came, as though speaking in a dream, subconscious and non-linear.  Vera's eyes were shut tight, she gripped the bed sheets til her nails nearly tore it to shreds.

 

"Yes yes yes yes _yes -  yes please, I want... I want,"_ she said, an incoherent stream beginning to flow.  Joan paid careful, familiar attention to _every word._

 

"I want... I want you to... please, Joan," she gulped, "Please, I want to... I want to... I want to...forget, _forget,_ " she said suddenly, as though finding it on a broken path, gasping.  "I want... I _love_ you, I need... I want... Hmmmmmmmm."

 

There was a pause, her gripping the sheets hard, not breathing. 

 

And then, begging, almost crying, "No, no, _nuh no no no no please please please._ Oh god, _oh god._ "

 

Joan was grateful for her developed sense of self control when those three little words slipped out.  She quelled the rising she had not expected in her heart.  She knew she cared for Vera but... Now was not the time to consider this.  Now she must be clear, precise, certain.  She administered her strikes with increasing speed - til the tell-tale rush of blood beneath the skin speckled Vera's delicate backside.

 

Suddenly Vera felt air flow over her wounded skin as she was flipped over - she gasped as she hit the bed, the stinging pain overwhelming, but lost all sense of herself when hot tongue and lips fell on hers abruptly, strong hand firmly on the back of her neck, and steady fingers pressed down hard, first on her tight, straining clit, then into the slick heat below. Vera heard her own sighs and moans strangled in Joan's mouth, her tongue dominating Vera's, prodding her throat, so deeply she kissed her.

 

Joan's fingers made quick work of her, firmly and mercilessly rubbing at her delicate and hardened flesh until Vera was quivering, bucking, quaking uncontrollably, and so hard Joan had to clasp Vera's slender shoulder to keep her steady.  Joan herself was barely able to breathe and utterly confused by the tears streaming hotly down her face, hoping they were lost and unnoticed in the sweat and heat between them.  Vera's gasps and moans escalated,  in volume and intensity, and Joan swallowed the sounds, licking, sucking, humming approval into Vera's mouth.

 

Vera took one final shocked breath in and dug her fingers into Joan's shoulders and back so hard she would have drawn blood had the skin been bare.  She shook with a deep and unknown violence emanating from her very core, and steadily, gaining unprecedented speed, it began to rumble up from somewhere deep inside of her, perhaps from the very earth itself, and rattled her like an earth quake moving through a house of flesh and bone.

 

With a soft, shaking parting of her lips, Vera came soundlessly, wordlessly, helpless and blind in Joan's arms.

 

Joan gasped in slight, shocked hiccups of air along with Vera's stunted breathing.  She held her up, one arm around her warm back, the other gripping her shoulder as they rocked unevenly through the last jolts of orgasm.  She marvelled at Vera's vulnerable, open face, like an infant just born - or reborn.  She was _so beautiful._

 

"Joan. _Joan,"_ Vera murmured eventually, fingers reaching, still blind and quiet.  Her chest heaved, eyes shut, and Joan swiftly maneuvered herself, fully clothed, beneath Vera's naked body, cradling her for what was to come.

 

"Oh _God,_ Joan - Joan," she gasped in horrified discovery, eyes popping open, "I'm a monster."  Swallowing hard, she chocked out the word again: "I'm a _monster."_

 

Vera grabbed desperately at Joan's shirt and pulled herself closer, burying her face in Joan's chest.

 

And she let out a wail in such a pitch that it was barely discernable.

 

Her face scrunched and twisted, her mouth open in near-silence til suddenly she gasped and then it really started to come - the gagging, heaving, deep-from-her-belly sobs that wrenched and wrecked her until she thought she might be sick.  Silence reigned, oppressive and humid, amplifying her stunted cries. 

 

All the while Joan held her, rocked her, soothed her.  She gingerly patted her head, whispered soft sounds into her hair, the very sounds if not words of love.  Joan shimmied her way under the cover and pulled it over Vera's now shivering form - all heat and force had left her and she was falling, falling, falling...

 

"You are safe," Joan said, as she sobbed.

 

"You are cared for," she said, rocking her as Vera cried and wailed.

 

"You have done nothing wrong," she said, and her voice hitched with pain.  "And no one... no one will ever hurt you again... as long as I am here."

 

Joan gripped her tightly then, and Vera cried louder for a moment.  But then, as Joan's embrace, like a snake, became more claustrophobic, Vera seemed to calm.  Joan squeezed til she thought she almost might be hurting her, and suddenly Vera was silent.

 

She sniffled once, brushing her nose against Joan's shirt, finding her arms uselessly inaccessible.  At her slight shifting, Joan gently eased her grip.

 

"Joan?"

 

Vera peered up from Joan's embrace.  Joan's heart broke like a sledgehammer hit it at the look of naked openness and hope in Vera's fresh face.

 

"Joan are we... am I..."

 

She blinked helplessly. Joan could have pulled her own heart out to heal this one, had that been an option.

 

"It's going to be all right, dear," she said, lifting her left hand to stroke Vera's cheek.  It was hopelessly damp with tears Joan could only hope to some day dry up - or replace with other, more acceptable tears, of pleasure or of joy.

 

"Joan?"  Vera wiggled an arm free and reached up to brush the tears streaming down Joan's face. She had hoped Vera wouldn't notice, in her state.

 

Vera's now very-present voice was full of concern, a mere squeak of worry.

 

"What's the matter? Has... have I done something wrong?"

 

Joan shook her head vehemently and grabbed Vera's hand, not unkindly.

 

"No, Vera."  She bit her lip and her eyes bore into Vera's.  "No."

 

She kissed her lips, the top of her head, and gathered her up again in her arms, obscuring Vera's view of her face.

 

"You've done everything _right."_

 


End file.
